The Anchorage- A Sanctuary of Wisdom and Spirituality.

28/12/2025

Feast of the Holy Family

Today, as we celebrate this feast, we pray for families everywhere. We celebrate the gift of love which binds families together and brings such deep joy and meaning to our lives.

We remember families who are struggling at this time and are also mindful of the heartbreak so many families are enduring due to fires, floods, car accidents and violence over recent times and the Christmas period. Our hearts go out to them and our prayers are with them.

And, on this day when we remember and pray to the Holy Family who were in danger and fleeing for their lives, we pray for families throughout the world who have been forced to leave their homes and face incredible danger every day.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, hold us, keep us, pray for us all.

This beautiful Australian image of the Holy Family is by Austrian/ Australian artist, Leopoldine Mimovich

26/12/2025

26/12/2025

'St. Stephen' ~ Malcolm Guite:

Witness for Jesus, man of fruitful blood,

Your martyrdom begins and stands for all.

They saw the stones, you saw the face of God,

And sowed a seed that blossomed in St. Paul.

When Saul departed breathing threats and slaughter

He had to pass through that Damascus gate

Where he had held the coats and heard the laughter

As Christ, alive in you, forgave his hate,

And showed him the same light you saw from heaven

And taught him, through his blindness, how to see;

Christ did not ask ‘Why were you stoning Stephen?’

But ‘Saul, why are you persecuting me?’

Each martyr after you adds to his story,

As clouds of witness shine through clouds of glory.

25/12/2025

24/12/2025

On Christmas Eve, 1775, in Cork, Ireland, Nano Nagle founded the Presentation Sisters.

Throughout 2026, we will be sharing stories of Nano’s life and how she brought joy, compassion and the love of Christ to all.

10/12/2025

December 10th is the anniversary of Thomas Merton’s death in 1968. On embarking on his final trip to Asia he wrote, “I am going home, to the home where I have never been in this body.”

08/12/2025

Second Week of Advent - Monday
Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

"Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through,
God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so . . ."

~The Blessed Virgin Mary Compared to the Air We Breathe
by Gerard Manly Hopkins

May Mary lead us more deeply into God's glory and may it shine through us...brightly!

Image ~ "A feather on the breath of God" by Mary Southard csj

07/12/2025

Second Sunday of Advent

Commenting on today's Gospel, a Carthusian monk says that "John the Baptist is the clear glass which allows the light to pass through without distorting it. That is John’s poverty and his greatness...but John is not the final word which appears on the infinitely more mysterious face of love."

The same author quotes St. Augustine:
"I listen, it is he who speaks.
I am enlightened; he is the light.
I am the ear, he is the Word."

"...the clear glass which allows the Light to pass through without distorting it." ... may we be that same clear glass this Advent day.

02/12/2025

Today marks the 45th Anniversary of the Martyrdom in El Salvador of Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford and Maura Clarke, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel and Lay Missioner Jean Donovan who were brutally murdered then buried in a shallow grave on December 2nd, 1980. On this day we also remember the 70,000 Salvadorans who also perished during that nation’s civil war. Lord, have mercy.

Image courtesy of Maryknoll Mission Archives